Gadgetory

Samsung has really gotten my attention with their s6 lineup first with the edge whose stellar looks unique curved screen and phenomenal camera would have captured me as a user if it wasn't for its average at best battery life and now with the s6 active it looks like they've addressed my one complaint but is it enough for me to switch from the droid turbo drop the like on this video by the way if you're stoked to see the results from our GPU boosts 2.0 investigation with six gtx titan x graphics cards and seeing how they perform against each other under identical conditions intel brings ddr4 to the mainstream with their all-new core i7 6700 K and Core i5 6600 K processors check out the link in the video description to learn more the Galaxy s6 active features an 8 core Exynos 7420 processor with a Mallee t760 GPU 3 gigs of ram and 32 gigabytes of on-board unfortunately non expandable storage the screen is a beautiful 5.1 inch Super AMOLED Corning Gorilla Glass 4 covered affair that boasts a resolution of 2560 by 1440 and infinite contrast since the black pixels are actually turned off outright and man I love the screens on s6 phones that I've used and above that you'll find a 5-megapixel selfie camera to go along with the 16 megapixel main camera that also records in ultra HD for video sounds pretty familiar right well it should because under the hood the galaxy s6 active is really not very different from its siblings a really nice change from previous active SKUs which toned down the flagship specs of the regular ones in exchange for its additional ruggedness which isn't to say it's identical there are some small differences like the fact that it's available in only one capacity instead of having 64 or 128 gig options and cannot be bought pre equipped with wireless charging and there are some major differences like the fact that the active does not feature a fingerprint sensor and that it comes equipped with a massive 3,500 milliamp hour battery that's enough for even me to get through the day love it once you go big battery there's just no going back I mean these days I laugh at people who have slim sleek phones and big stupid battery banks in their pockets that they have to keep them plugged into which I guess leads us into the physical tour doesn't it this is a love it or hate it design my friends while I personally love the looks I've actually never seen it in person without the sexy D brand skin that those guys put on before they sent it over so that weird Arctic camo thing never had a chance to bug me and life isn't just about looks anyway what use is like a lady who looks great but like falls out of your arms every time you try to give her a hug and that unfortunately was my experience with the s6 active well I never actually did drop it the awkwardly positioned multitask button way over here and the boxy design not to mention the higher than usual weight made it more difficult to manage for my small hands then even phones that are slightly bigger and thicker like my daily driver Droid turbo the good thing is that this particular lady is super duper ruggedly built at the back is an ever so slightly raised border around the camera bump with the flash and regrettably rear mounted speaker being the only other features on the back I mean look at the speakers not that bad it's just rear mounted so basically the worst possible position at the front are the hardware home back and multitasking buttons that are a huge turnoff for many users for that I actually found more convenient than capacitive buttons in this position since they're stiff enough to require a fairly decisive click so I never accidentally pressed them while holding the phone in landscape orientation to watch a movie and not much else on the front either around the edges are a microUSB port on the bottom supporting quick charge a headphone jack on the top in mic referred position a horrible lock button on the right that sticks out about four miles from the chassis and that this thing is super easy to press by accident so real pain in the butt and until you manually disable this function and software it actually hangs up the phone if you bump it during a call and then there's also a poorly positioned volume rocker seriously it's nearly impossible to hit one without the other with a cool multifunction button right above that which acts as a shutter when you're in the camera app and can be programmed to perform a variety of other functions with a single press or a hold from within the settings menu neat now what some of you might have noticed is that in spite of the s6 actives ip68 dust and water resistance rating of one and a half meters for thirty minutes to go along with its salt sole radiation thermal shock and vibration resistance I mean hey you might need vibration resistance I'm not I'm not judging it has no lame you know rubber flaps or anything like that all buttons microphone speakers jacks and even the tool is SIM tray are always sealed an implementation that just feels much more trustworthy to me so let's talk then about general usage experience well it's a galaxy s6 with stormtrooper armor essentially so generally speaking performance was great the camera is magnificent with both the rear and selfie cameras just delivering some truly stunning results I mean look at this shot of me sitting in a darkened room writing this review on my laptop versus the droid turbo another decent phone and TouchWiz has improved so much that I don't feel like it's a knock against a device anymore so kudos for that Samsung but there were a few things that bugged me this time around anyway first the s6 active has got an unbelievable amount of bloatware on it disable all that stuff before you even set up the phone I mean seriously while tangent Games milk video AT&T Navigator what is this crap and and don't tell me in the comments what it is I don't care I don't want it on the phone it shouldn't be there another weird thing and maybe it's just mine so guys let me know this one in the comments if your experience is different is that double taps only register like 70 to 80 percent of the time for me when I go really fast which caused a lot of typos in words with double letters for me and then finally we've got a couple of TouchWiz annoyances number one never tell me what I can and cannot do with the battery life left on my phone Samsung disables the camera under 5% causing me to miss a great picture opportunity with my baby girl not cool and to please fix the trusted devices on that lock like if you have a wearable or something like that you need to press to wake then there's no way to disable the stupid swipe to unlock I never noticed on the edge because I was always just using the fingerprint reader anyway but this was kind of annoying on this phone I have a trusted device so I don't have to have a screen unlock which doesn't mean that I don't like the phone the s6 active lives up to its name it's a phone for people who use their phone rather than just admiring it and while I don't plan to switch because I prefer the extra 10% greater battery capacity and the gestures of the droid turbo like flicking for the flashlight and wiggling for the camera I wouldn't criticize anyone for picking up an s6 active instead of a regular s6 as long as they know what they're getting themselves into because that is both the appeal of Android and its Achilles heel the s6 active is just different enough from other Android devices to make it a contender for me it's and it's great to have that choice but because it's a weird carrier exclusive model and therefore a relatively low volume one it is already lagging behind other s6 is when it comes to software support a problem that's often difficult to properly overcome since the more obscure your devices the lower the chance that any one manufacturer or indie developer will be working on new Android updates for it so that makes the answer to should you get one fairly straightforward if you like it exactly the way it is then I give it a massive thumbs up in fact I'm switching my wife over to it because we're one mA it's battery life and camera are driving her up the wall and for baby owners and this phone is perfect thanks to its stellar camera and durability but if you're expecting it to continue to evolve over time then I might not take the plunge speaking of taking the plunge head over to D brand comm slash Linus active if you guys want to learn more about deep brand and the awesome skins that they offer for phones game consoles controllers laptops all kinds of cool stuff their vinyl skins serve a couple of purposes number one is they look great you don't have to get white you can get all kinds of different finishes and different colors definitely check out the variety actually our LG g4 video has a great showcase of all the different finishes on the same foam backing so that's pretty cool and the other purpose they serve is additional durability so if you're worried about you know an incidental drop scratching your phone or something like that a vinyl skin they cost a few bucks so if you scratch it rip it off replace it it leaves no residue and you can put them on quite quickly the last thing that's great about deep brown skins is the fit and finish of their vinyl skins they spend a lot of time on the fit and finish and they go on absolutely flawlessly so check it out that's deep brand calm slash Linus acted it's linked in the video description and give it a try see if you want to you know personalize one of your things that needs a vinyl wrap because that's what they do thanks for watching guys if this video sucked then you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed to our channel hit that like button or even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon you can find the instructions for that up there by buying a cool t-shirt like this one or even with the direct monthly contribution through our community forum now that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the top right corner to check out our browser showdown video where we put Microsoft edge up against Google Chrome and Firefox and opera basically it's a browser showdown so yeah